


Black Night Mansion

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Rebellious Causes [3]
Category: Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Genre: Gen, Guns, M/M, Runaway, talk of past abuse, trans!Plato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Plato runs away again one night with his gun. Only Jim can find him.





	Black Night Mansion

**Author's Note:**

> i have a few more ideas for this fandom and then i will probably be done unless i come up with more ideas.

Jim knew something was wrong the minute he came within eyesight of Plato’s house. His maid, Pam, was standing out front, talking to the police, wrapped in her bathrobe, looking nervous as ever. The only time she ever got like that was when something happened to Plato and Jim picked up the pace, jogging to reach the house. He stopped just one house short, watching Pam speak frantically to the cops. He couldn’t hear them very well, but he got the gist of it: Plato had run away. With his gun. And now Pam had no idea where he was. He listened a little longer and realized the police had already been out looking for him. They’d come back now to tell Pam they couldn’t find him.

Clenching his hands into shaking fists, Jim swallowed hard. That made him nervous too. The last time Plato had run away with his gun, he’d ended up getting shot by the police and was in the hospital, fighting for his life for several weeks after. Who knew what would happen this time? And the worst part was none of them even knew where he was. He could be anywhere Los Angeles by now. Especially if he’d taken the bus. Or one of the many trams around here. The idea alone made Jim’s heart jump into his throat.

He turned away from the house, walking back towards his own, his eyes on his feet as he walked, his hands still clenched into fists. Where could Plato have gotten off to? Where would he go? For whatever reason – maybe it was how well he knew Plato – he couldn’t picture the kid running around aimlessly. He had a destination. Now he just had to figure out what it was.

He was almost back to his parents’ place when he froze, suddenly rooted to the spot with revelation and understanding.

He knew where Plato was. He knew where he was exactly.

And he ran the rest of the way back to his parents’ house.

His mother was waiting for him on the porch, much in the same way that Pam had been waiting for Plato, but the difference was his mother waited for him to make sure he hadn’t done anything that might ruin her reputation while he was gone. The sight of her alone made him frown and his hands, still clenched, clench all the tighter.

“James!” his mother called to him from the porch. She waved, but Jim pretended not to see her. She ran down the few steps to the walkway that led to the driveway and then right to where his car was parked in front of the garage. “Where are you going?” she went on as he got into the car.

“I’m going to find Plato,” Jim said, starting the car and already turning to look over his shoulder in order to back out of the driveway.

His mother scoffed. “That little trouble maker? Stay home, son. You don’t need to get mixed up with him and his dysfunctional, psychotic nonsense.”

This made Jim clench the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles were white. “It’s his family that’s dysfunctional, not him,” he said, his words clipped and curt. “And he’s not psychotic. He just doesn’t know how to deal with his family not caring about him.”

“Running around with a gun sounds psychotic to me,” his mother replied, her lips pressed into a thin line. “And don’t you take that tone with me, James Stark, I’m your mother.”

 _I don’t care,_ he thought to himself, but he didn’t reply. He backed out of the driveway, not listening to his mother shouting after him, telling him to come back, threatening him with moving again if he didn’t, but he didn’t care. Plato needed him more than she did right now.

Not that he really thought she needed him at all, if he were going to be honest.

He drove down the street, still able to see her in his rear-view mirror, still calling after him. He wanted to flip her the bird. He wanted to tell her exactly what he thought of her – that she really wasn’t all that better than Plato’s parents, as much as she loved to pretend otherwise – but he did neither of these things. It wouldn’t do anything except convince her they needed to move again.

The mansion was on the outskirts of the town they lived in, hidden in the woods where no one would find it. It had been abandoned for far longer than anyone who currently lived in the area could remember and that was why it was Plato’s favorite place to hang out. No one went there. No one except Plato. Jim and Judy had only been there once. He couldn’t really consider either one of them regulars of the place. It was Plato’s hangout. Anyone who knew him knew that.

If Plato was anywhere nearby, Jim knew he had to be there.

It took a lot shorter of a time than he’d thought it would to get there. He was also surprised he remembered the way since he’d only been there one other time. But when he pulled up to the mansion, it looked just as dark and imposing as he remembered it looking.

He got out of the car, staring up at the huge three-story facade, even larger than Plato’s house, which was still considered a mansion by most. Most of the windows were broken and the door hung at an angle on its hinges. The rooms were full of old, rotting furniture covered in dirty white sheets. The floors were covered in dead leaves and more dirt. The staircase was rickety and there were holes in the upper floors. Overall, the place wasn’t a safe place to be, but he felt that was probably one of the reasons Plato hung out there. He knew no one else would find him there.

Jim shoved his hands into the pockets of his red jacket and, still looking up at the mansion, headed towards the damaged door. He climbed around it, almost tripping over his own two feet and landing on his face as he struggled to get inside. His footsteps echoed throughout the mostly empty house and he wondered if Plato could hear him from wherever he was in the mansion.

“Plato?” he called tentatively, looking into the parlor to the left of the door. It was empty as far as he could tell, nothing there except the shadows of the old furniture, covered in the dirty white sheets. He looked in the dining room to the right of the door, but it looked similarly: empty and dark, full of nothing but shadows.

“Plato?” Jim called again, starting down the hall, his shoes making echoes as they slapped against the marble tile beneath his feet. They sounded too loud. He tried walked quieter. Loud noises scared the kid. He knew that all too well when he’d accidentally shot at him.

“Jim?”

The voice was dim, distant and Jim couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from, but it was unmistakably Plato’s voice. He walked more slowly, listening for him again, but he didn’t say anything else. Jim swallowed and, looking up the twisting marble staircase with the pure gold banister, he saw nothing except more shadows.

“Yeah, Plato, it’s me,” he called, hoping that Plato would say something again, allow him to pinpoint is location in the vastness of the house.

“What’re you doing here?” Plato called, his voice soft, just loud enough to be heard.

“I came for you, kid,” he said. The voice was coming from the back of the first floor, towards the living room and the sun room that led out to the porch near the long since empty swimming pool.

“Why?” Plato replied. He sounded nervous and slightly breathless. It was only then Jim remembered that Plato was almost always on oxygen anymore since that bullet had damaged his lung. He walked a little more quickly, wanting to find him before the kid couldn’t breathe anymore. Or worse, somehow hurt himself.

“Just to bring you home,” he replied. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You know I’d never hurt you.”

Plato didn’t reply, but Jim had reached the sun room and he saw Plato, curled in one corner, clutching the gun between his fingers like a lifeline. His finger rested lightly on the trigger and Jim resisted the urge to fling himself across the room and pull it out of Plato’s hand, knowing that would only result in him using the thing. Instead, he walked slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. Everything felt so eerily similar to the way it had only a few weeks ago in the planetarium.

Jim stopped only feet from Plato and knelt down on the ground in front of him. Now that he was close to him, he could see he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and looked pale, almost sick. He was gasping for breath, staring at some distant point in front of him, not seeing Jim, but rather seeing through him. The sight made Jim nervous. He needed to get him home. Now.

“Can I see that?” he asked quietly, holding his hand out for the gun.

But Plato shook his head, pulling the gun closer to his chest. “No.”

“Just for a second,” Jim replied, forcing a smile, trying not to think about how similar this was to only a few weeks earlier. “Then I’ll give it right back, I promise.”

Plato looked at Jim then, his face a mask of fear and anguish. Jim wanted to take all of the hurt that was in him away forever. But then Plato slowly nodded and held out the gun with shaking fingers. Jim carefully took it from him, watching as Plato slowly pried his fingers off the handle before pulling his arms back to himself, wrapping them around himself and returning his gaze to that distant point. Jim surreptitiously removed the bullet chamber from the gun.

“Okay,” he said softly. “You can have it back now.”

Plato’s gaze returned to Jim’s face and he took the gun back, holding it as he had been when Jim first found him. Then his gaze slid away again and he continued to gasp for breath. The whole sight of him broke Jim’s heart.

“Why’d you run away, kid?” he finally asked after a long silence.

For a moment, Plato remained silent too, saying nothing, still staring at nothing in particular. Then his gaze shifted back to Jim’s face and he said, “Everything hurts too much. Everything is too much. I-I don’t wanna deal with it anymore.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. Jim knew exactly what he meant. Because he felt it too. With his family. With school. With everything. And he knew Plato felt it for the same yet different reasons. With his family – because his mother saw him as nothing more than a burden and his father had left him after abusing him for years beforehand – with school – because everyone there bullied him – and with everything else, though Jim wasn’t sure what exactly the everything else was for Plato. He’d never thought it polite to ask.

“Pam’s worried sick about you, you know,” Jim replied, his voice still soft, not wanting to scare the kid. “She called the cops and they’ve been lookin’ all over for you.”

Plato started to shake at the mention of the cops. “I don’t like them. They hurt me.”

Jim winced and cursed himself internally for mentioning them. “Yeah, I know,” he replied, “but I’m not gonna hurt you. I just wanna bring you home and make sure you’re okay.”

This time when Plato looked at him, he looked surprised. “You do?”

Jim nodded, forcing another smile, trying not to let his heart break again at the idea that it was foreign to Plato that someone could care that much about him. He knew he had Pam, but he also knew that wasn’t the same thing as having your own parents love you. “Yeah,” he said, “Yeah I do. How about we go home now, okay? You need your oxygen.”

Plato was gasping for air now, almost panting and it was worrying Jim. He stood and reached out a hand to help Plato up too. He took his hand and let him pull him to his feet.

“Is Pam mad at me?” he asked quietly as they started out of the mansion.

“No,” Jim said, wanting to sling his arm over Plato’s shoulders, but instead giving him jacket. He was shaking from the cold now too. “She’s just worried. Like me. She loves you a lot, kid.”

That made Plato smile. Not a full smile, not his radiant smile that could power cities, but enough of one to make Jim smile too.

Maybe just once everything would be okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by an rp i did with my jim/dally <3


End file.
